


Impressive Control

by silentdescant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Consensual Violence, Consent Issues, M/M, Manipulation, Painplay, Werewolf Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 03:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2134806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdescant/pseuds/silentdescant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t hit people, Sirius,” Remus tells him calmly. “I leave that to you.”</p><p>Disgruntled, Sirius replies, “I only hit people when I want them to hit me back.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impressive Control

**Author's Note:**

> Yesterday's daily writing exercise. Unbeta'd and sadly not porny (sorry).

It had taken years for Sirius to nudge and prod and coax Remus to this point, to this moment where Remus is completely unafraid to fist his hands in Sirius’s shirt and hurl him against a solid wall. Sirius hits it and slumps a little, but before he can fall completely, Remus is there again, grabbing him, holding him upright, pinning him between the wall and Remus’s steel-strong arms. It’s hard to catch his breath, Remus is pressing against him so tightly, and Sirius delights in it, and relishes the bruises that will appear all over his chest and shoulder blades tomorrow.

“You don’t know when to quit, do you, Black?” Remus hisses.

On the contrary. Sirius knows exactly where the lines are, it’s just that he loves crossing them. It’s more than worth these moments of intense, flaring anger, for what he gets out of them.

But suddenly, Remus comes to his senses and his grip loosens. Sirius sags against the wall and wrinkles his brow, wondering what could’ve possibly calmed Remus down in the space of three seconds. Remus stares at him for a long time, with his hands gently clasped around Sirius’s lapels, and Sirius watches his eyes soften gradually, until finally Remus sighs and lets him go. He turns away, flexing his fingers at his sides as if to wipe the feeling of his angry fists from sense memory.

“What was that?” Sirius asks sharply to Remus’s retreating back. “Don’t you walk away from me, Lupin!”

“Now isn’t a good time, Sirius,” Remus replies in an undertone. That voice means he’s hiding something.

Sirius, still annoyed at his careful manipulations turning to ruin so quickly, goes after Remus. He grabs Remus’s arm roughly, wrenches him around, and is shocked to find Remus’s expression weary. It’s like he’s aged a decade in the past few minutes.

“What happened to all that anger?” Sirius can’t help but ask, somewhat helpless to his petulant curiosity. “You were about to thump me not five minutes ago, and now… this? What did I do?”

“It wasn’t anything you did,” Remus assures him. “It was what I did. What I almost did. I almost did hit you, Sirius.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Only just.”

“But why?”

Remus regards him with a shrewd sort of calculation and comes to his conclusions quickly, which is a small mercy. “You goaded me on purpose,” he states, quite confident. “You wanted to be hit.”

“Why didn’t you?” Sirius asks again. He’s glad to not sound as childish now, but even though this feels like an adult conversation, he doesn’t feel like an adult having it. He wants what he wants, and he’d been so clever about attaining it, and now Moony won’t give it to him. He feels every inch the spoilt brat his parents raised.

“I don’t hit people, Sirius,” Remus tells him calmly. “I leave that to you.”

Disgruntled, Sirius replies, “I only hit people when I want them to hit me back.”

Remus laughs and looks startled by the outburst. “You’re not right in the head, Pads.”

“It’s the inbreeding.”

Though Sirius means it as a joke, it doesn’t come out that way. Remus eyes him again, surveying his face and torso as if Sirius is a very complicated riddle that he must answer correctly on the first try. Sirius watches him consider his answers, and watches his mouth cautiously shape words he doesn’t speak aloud.

“I did want you to hit me,” Sirius admits, breaking the silence. “I’ve wanted it for years, Remus. Since Hogwarts, when I’d bother you and tease you and touch you and you never hit me, not even when you clearly wanted to. I know why you didn’t, back then, but I thought… I thought I’d fixed that.”

Remus shrugs his shoulder, dislodging Sirius’s hand from his arm, and takes a half step back. This is not what Sirius had intended. “What did you think it was?” Remus asks in a distant voice. It reminds Sirius very vividly of the time when he and James had figured out Remus’s condition and tried to break the news to him.

Sirius doesn’t want Remus to be afraid. He relaxes his posture, deliberately opens up his body language to show that he means no harm, and that Remus’s secrets, as they always have been, are utterly safe in Sirius’s hands.

“You were afraid I’d stop being your friend,” Sirius says carefully. Fear is a bit of a trigger-word for Gryffindors, who like to pretend they’re not ever afraid, but Remus barely reacts to it. He does start breathing a bit harder, though, so Sirius knows he must be cautious. “You were afraid I wouldn’t like you anymore if you disagreed with me, and that I’d stop hanging around with you, and I’d stop including you, and I’d stop loving you. But you know now, don’t you, that it’s not true. I fixed that.”

“You knew?” Remus breathes. “You… fixed it? How did you…”

“It took a long time,” Sirius says with a faint note of pride. “I had to reassure you so often, but I couldn’t let you know what I was up to. I’m surprised you didn’t catch on, to be honest. You’re clever like that, but thankfully not in the ways of manipulation.”

“You deliberately manipulated me?”

Sirius swallows guiltily in the face of Remus’s cold question. “Only in an effort to make you see the truth, Moony. You were blind to it. I just needed you to open your eyes and see that I will never stop being your friend. You can’t get rid of me. No amount of fighting could make me turn away from you.”

“You are unflinchingly loyal,” Remus says. “You should’ve been a Hufflepuff.”

“The Hat considered it, actually,” Sirius says lightly.

“You’re too bold, though. Too reckless and fearless and brash.”

“Why didn’t you hit me tonight, Remus? You know I wouldn’t have left you.”

“I don’t hit people,” Remus says, repeating his words from earlier.

“Not even people who ask for it?”

The withering look Remus gives Sirius then makes him consider every subtle manipulation he’d employed. He’d taken care of Remus’s fear of rejection, at least as far as it related to Sirius himself, but he must’ve overlooked another facet.

“You’re a Gryffindor,” Sirius says, frustrated. “You know how to fight.”

“Is it so hard to believe that I just don’t want to hurt you, Sirius?”

“But I want you to! I deserve it! I’ve been a right arse about everything that gets you worked up, and it’s all been on purpose, because I want you to bloody well thump me!”

Remus’s eyes harden and his lips press together in a thin, determined line. “Do you want me to show you?”

“Yes,” Sirius replies immediately. “Show me, please.”

“Right,” Remus mutters, and the next thing Sirius knows, he’s pinned against the wall once more, breathless from the impact. One of Remus’s forearms slams hard against his throat, keeping him from drawing in a full, deep breath to recover, and Sirius tugs at Remus’s wrist automatically, gasping for air. Remus is immovable. He’s like a piece of the architecture, as hard and unforgiving as the wall behind him.

With his other hand, Remus catches Sirius’s wrist and forces it down to his side. He holds it there like a shackle, and when Sirius struggles against him, writhing as best he can, Remus twists. He keeps twisting, unflinching even as Sirius cries out in pain. His bones are about to snap, he just knows it, but Remus hardly seems to notice. It certainly doesn’t look like he’s expending much effort, immobilizing Sirius and hurting him this way.

“This is why,” Remus whispers. His breath is warm across Sirius’s face. “Because I know my strength and you don’t, and you won’t win. You’ll never end up anything but hurt.”

A final, sudden yank breaks Sirius’s arm. Remus steps back at once and Sirius crumples to the floor, cradling his arm to his chest. When he’s regained his breath, his gasps turn to embarrassing whimpers. He doesn’t think he can stand, but Remus crouches down in front of him and watches him kindly.

He takes Sirius’s hand and taps his wand against the swollen arm. The bones mend with a tangible surge of relief, and the swelling goes down quickly. It doesn’t hurt any longer, but Sirius still feels the phantom pain of it, and the crack of his bones is still loud and echoing in his ears.

Sirius realizes then that this demonstration, this display of Remus’s physical power, was entirely controlled and just as deliberate as Sirius’s manipulations. “Do you ever lose control?” he asks wondrously. Even Sirius, who has been trained since childhood to control his words and his body and now delights in ignoring his rigid upbringing, can’t imagine Remus’s level of restraint.

“I almost did, tonight,” Remus says.

Sirius grins. “It wouldn’t have ended well for me.”

“No,” Remus replies shortly. “It wouldn’t. So I’ll thank you not to test me again.”

Remus helps Sirius to his feet, though now the pain is a fading memory, and they stand awkwardly, not speaking for several moments. Sirius finally comes to a realization and leans against the wall, drops his hands, juts out his hips in a studied display of cocky confidence.

“I don’t know your strength,” he says. “But you do.”

“I do,” Remus confirms.

“You really do have incredible self-control.”

“What are you getting at, Sirius?”

Delighted, Sirius grins. “You broke my arm, Moony!”

Remus, on the other hand, looks faintly sick. “Please don’t spread that around, Sirius.”

“This whole time, I wanted you to lose control. That was my end goal. I wanted to make you confident enough, and then annoy you enough, so you’d stop being so bloody buttoned-up about it and smack me one. But you don’t need to lose control of yourself to hurt me. You just demonstrated that.”

“Sirius, what are you talking about?”

“You want to hit me sometimes, don’t you, Remus?” Sirius asks, almost giddy with the idea. “You want to hit me when I want you to hit me. But you don’t.”

“Right.”

“Well, I’m saying… You could. We can both get what we want, and you can keep your obsessive control—”

“It’s for your own good!” Remus interjects. “I’m trying not to hurt people! You in particular, since you’re the only one intent on driving me mad!”

Sirius uses his shoulders to push himself away from the wall, back into Remus’s space. “So hit me,” he says, his eyes glittering with excitement and adrenaline. “I know you want it. You know I want it. I crave it, Remus. Do it.”

Rather than slap him or punch him, though, Remus reaches out and takes Sirius’s chin gently in his hand. He tilts Sirius’s head left and right, as if surveying a canvas, but when he finally reaches a decision, he sighs and lets Sirius go.

“Not the face,” Remus says. “I’ll break your teeth or damage your eyes or give you a concussion, and I don’t want to risk it.”

Sirius smirks and moves at once to unbutton his rumpled shirt. Once it’s hanging loose from his shoulders, he undoes his trousers and lets them sag low around his hips, revealing the cotton pants underneath. He hadn’t planned this—he would’ve worn something sexier than plain, white underpants if he had—but he finds he’s not averse to the idea of this becoming less strictly a physical release and more sexual in nature. Without stripping completely naked and overwhelming his poor friend, Sirius spreads his arms wide.

“You have my body. I want to hurt, and I trust you.”

Remus’s eyes slide down the bare expanse of Sirius’s chest and catch on the waistband of his pants, then flick back up to Sirius’s face. Sirius knows he’s going to give in. He can read it clear as day in Remus’s hesitant, cautious expression.

At long last, Remus clears his throat. His voice is much surer than Sirius expects, and Sirius thrills at the quiet, confident sound of it as Remus says, “Take off your clothes, then, Black.”

 

 _fin_.


End file.
